Responding to a claim that Malaysia has been hosting Hamas operatives, he said Malaysia’s aid to Palestine was based on religion.

“As our nation is a Muslim nation, the Palestinian struggle is close to the hearts of Malaysians.

“In my view, the concern shown by our citizens may have been misunderstood by certain parties,” he said in a press conference at Bukit Aman here.

Khalid said Malaysia continues to maintain good ties with the US, and is continuously exchanging information to obtain early intelligence for effective future actions.

On Sept 18, US author and former counterterrorism analyst Jonathan Schanzer quoted a post on X by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on the ongoing conflict in Gaza, and said Malaysia has been hosting Hamas operatives.

“His country has been hosting Hamas operatives for years. He’s not interested in peace,” he wrote, in a post with around five million views and 1,500 replies to date.

In a later post on X, Schanzer acknowledged the Malaysian response to his comment, saying they mainly comprised “Malaysian trolls” with responses that were “humorous and occasionally demented”.

The original post on Anwar’s page was a video of the prime minister’s address at the Emergency Arab-Islamic Summit in Doha, Qatar.

“Gaza is crushed, the West Bank dispossessed, the region bombarded. Israel’s vow against a Palestinian state is a vow of permanent apartheid. Malaysia stands firm for justice, for Palestine,” Anwar said in the post’s caption.